FFilmation 1.3.3 Release candidate ( Sun 22 Feb 2009 )
I have updated the repository with the sources for the 1.3.3 release. I’m not making this an official release yet: I have reprogrammed so many things that I’m afraid I may have broken something. I would be nice if people with ongoing projects could give it a try a give some feedback both about bugs and performance before I make an official release of it.
I have spend so many hours trying to optimize the rendering process but I feel that the improvement is not that much noticeable, so I am specially interested in how does it perform for you. Here’s a brief summary of the highlights for this release:
- Scenes use less memory.
- I have tried to optimize the render process as much as possible, reducing the amount of layers, blendmodes and transformation matrixes. Given the amount of hours invested the result is quite dissappointing: In my tests I see an improvement of nothing to 10%, but I’m unsure about the real impact in other people’s applications.
- The container property for fRenderableElements is no longer a generic MovieClip. Instead, a new fElementContainer class is used. Properties are the same.
- Lots of collision tweaks. I hope it works better for everybody now.
- You don’t collide against hidden elements.
- Optimized the Fence material ( does anyone but me use it ? )
- You can soften shadows using the fEngine.softShadows property
- More robust projection and lighting system, also a first step towards having irregular wall shapes.
Awesome! I can’t wait to try it out! I have altered some of the rendering methods, and some base element classes so it will take a minute to merge the code together.
Definitely want to test the performance improvements. The softShadows property sounds interesting and it would be great to have irregular wall shapes!!! Great partial release!
Thanks
Mike said this on February 23rd, 2009 at 6:10 am
Everything seems to be running great so far! I have noticed a slight performance gain, which is awesome.. The only thing that is STILL driving me nuts, is the error I get when you remove a character from the scene.
From trying to trace back what was causing the error, it looks like it has something to do with shadows/lights not being removed properly, so when other renderable elements around it try to reflect light or shadows onto the removed character, it freaks out about an nil object… hmmm…
Mike said this on February 23rd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I’m going to give your engine a first try. If it works for us I may develop on it heavily. Glad to see this post. 1-10% is a solid improvement.
Adam said this on February 24th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Hi Jordi
There is a temporary problem with your email account. The mails are bouncing back. Could you please mail me at my email account as soon as possible?
Thanks.
P said this on February 25th, 2009 at 3:14 am
Hi Mike.
I’ve fixed several bugs related to showing, hiding and removing stuff. Let me know if it fixed your issue.
admin said this on February 25th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
That worked PERFECTLY! Thanks so much, I’ve been dreading that bug for the longest time!
Mike said this on February 25th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Hey Jordi, good work. Hey I’m interested what you use for coding? The Flex Builder or Flash it self?
John said this on February 26th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Hi!
It worked great, performance and other things. Really nice job!
I’m on a project now, and I’ve migrated the engine, and between the floors (992×992) there is now a white line. It worked with the 1.3.2, but now there is this little bug. I’ve reverted to old version and it is ok, but I want to use the new release, cause it’s better.
Do you have any idea of how can I fix this? All floors have materials assigned.
Thanks man!
Sandro Haag said this on February 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I use the Flash IDE + UltraEdit. A bit oldschool I know. I prefer Flash because the timeline is a powerful tool although I know modern trends go towards this “my site is 100% pure code because I’m a great programmer and timeline animation is for designers” nonsense
admin said this on February 26th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Hi Sandro
can you send me an screenshot so I can see these lines ?
admin said this on February 26th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I’ve noticed lines as well. It seems like floor materials aren’t snapping properly, and are leaving a 1px line…
Mike said this on February 26th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Here is the link to the print screen
http://www.sandrohaag.com/stuff/white_space.jpg
If you need more info, please ask.
As soon as you solve it, please send me. Thanks a lot man!
Sandro Haag said this on March 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Hi,
I have updated the sources. Let me know if it looks any better.
admin said this on March 4th, 2009 at 12:12 am
I’ve checked out the new version at this repository: http://ffilmation.googlecode.com/svn/trunk
The lines are still there, like the old version.
Do you need more info?
Thanks!
Sandro Haag said this on March 5th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Hi,
Then I will need the sources for your scene so I can load it into my engine. You can email them to me.
admin said this on March 5th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Hi!
Can you please send me a mail with your mail address?
Thanks!
Sandro Haag said this on March 6th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Here is the zip of project:
http://www.sandrohaag.com/stuff/ffilmation_project.zip
Sandro Haag said this on March 6th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Hi! The new engine looks great, it does bring some performance improvement. I’m just wondering if this line issue was fixed? I’m encounting the same problem
Mars said this on May 21st, 2009 at 7:46 am
I’ve just found a quick hack for the line problem, basically in function getContours in fTileMaterial.as, just replace the return statement with “return [ [new Point(1,1),new Point(width-1,1),new Point(width-1,height-1),new Point(1,height-1)] ]”
Mars said this on May 21st, 2009 at 8:42 am